


College Student

by alexandredumas_eatyourheartout, Hecate1412



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Batman discovers it and decides he's interested, Bruce "do you want a job" Wayne, Shenanigans, college student sets up a surveillance system to document the bat clan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:26:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22263328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexandredumas_eatyourheartout/pseuds/alexandredumas_eatyourheartout, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate1412/pseuds/Hecate1412
Summary: Jack was supposed to record the BatClan for a class assignment. He did not ask for everything that came after. He did not expect Batman to be waiting for him in his apartment and he did realize what exactly taking a job with the Bat Clan would actually entail.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 108





	College Student

**Author's Note:**

> This is a collaboration between me and Banana_Writes05 for a HC we developed in the Maribat discord.

Jack was wondering if there was some validity in his parents concerns when he declared he was going to college to study film. “It’s not a well paying career,” they said. “You’ll end up being a starving artist,” they said. Jack decided to ignore them and do it anyway and now he was having regrets. Don’t misunderstand, he loves his field and wouldn’t change to anything else, and he was good at it. The problem is that he’s good at it and his teachers expected more from him than they do other students, which is why Jack is now stuck with the project of documenting the movements of the cities vigilante's. 

The subject was chosen out of pettiness. His classmates had been complaining that he always received special treatment because he was the favorite, and as a result, he let them decided the subject matter for the next major assignment. Clearly, they were expecting him to fail, but Jack wasn’t about to let them win this. He would pull this off despite how much his wallet would likely be hurting after he finished. 

It takes a few weeks to get everything just right, all cameras placed in plain sight and looking like they belonged there even though they were personal devices. They were high tech cameras with audio and all that jazz. Anyways after a few weeks, Jack gathered his videos and realized how incredibly insane Batman and his sidekicks are. It was here when the idea hits him. "Oh my freaking god! Batman is a _dad!_ " Naturally he couldn’t just sit on the information for the rest of his life, so he gathered together all the funniest clips, edited them together and posted them on every social media site. It didn’t take long for #batmanisadad and #singledadbatman to start trending.

  
  


In hindsight, posting embarrassing footage of the Bat Clan might not have been his smartest idea, but he couldn’t help it. He had the footage he needed for his short documentary on the city vigilante’s but there was _so much more_. Half of the footage was of the vigilantes messing around or wiping out. There was a shot of Robin mimicking Batman on the clock tower. “I’m the night!” he yelled hiding his face behind his cape before leaping off the building back to whatever it was he needed to do. Red Robin and Red Hood managed to crash into each other as they jumped a building, resulting in both of them dropping into the ally below. Nightwing was a showoff. It was clear he was a gymnast or something, and for the most part, Jack loved watching his footage, but the guy's wipeouts always had him rolling on the floor laughing. All of this was comedy gold and truthfully, it would have been a crime to keep it from the public. Again, probably not the smartest idea, especially since the night after the video was trending, Jack walked back into his apartment to find Batman and his four sons perching around his living room. Jack could say with confidence that these really were batman’s son because he’d connected the dots. Red Hood had slipped and called someone by their civilian name and Jack’s mind put the puzzle together immediately. Batman was Bruce Wayne and technically the hashtag wasn’t wrong. 

  
  
  


It in that moment Jack realized Batman saw his video.The guy dresses like a bat and fights clowns in his spare time! He probably has ten separate twitter accounts or something. So naturally he saw the video and now he was in Jack’s apartment, which would have worried a normal human being but Jack had come too far and had consumed too many Red Bulls to give a shit. 

As it turns out, Bruce was impressed with the recording system. He hadn’t picked up on the fact they were being watched until Oracle tried and failed to hack one of the cameras. So naturally, he hunted down each camera’s location to figure out what the deal was with them. He’s a detective, naturally he was interested in what would come out of it all. But after having the videos broadcasted all over social media, well…

"Bruce, did you know about this?" Dick asked the day the video hit the internet. In hindsight, Bruce should have seen this coming. 

"Yes."

"And you didn't tell us!?" Jason chimed in. 

"No."

"But Father-" Jason cussed as Damian materialized out of nowhere. "Father, all these shots of me are degrading and they captured my bad side!"

Tim snorted, "You have a good side?"

“I do have a good side, Drake, unlike you who looks bad from every angle. But that’s not the point. Father if you knew the camera’s were there, why didn’t you do or say anything about them?”

“I was curious.” he admitted. It's not everyday someone tried to catch footage of them. Technically there was no proof the camera’s had been placed specifically to catch them while they were in action. Bruce wouldn’t have put it past a very dedicated bird watcher to set up cameras to track migrating flocks. He hadn’t known what they were for and had mostly ignored them and that was his first mistake of many. It was thanks to Tim that they managed to find anything out about the guy who posted the video. 

“His name is Jackson Andrews, goes by Jack. He’s a junior at Gotham University studying film and production. He works part time for Glacier Photography, which is the group we sometimes hire to document the charity galas we host. All of his teacher evaluation’s claim he’s an exemplary student. I had a chance to look through some of his work. He’s not bad. He’s actually really good.” 

The info Tim supplied also included an address, and naturally the family decided it would be a good use of time to drop in and have a chat with this Jackson fella. And so they did. Except he wasn’t home when they arrived so they waited...in the dark...you know, like normal people. 

Shockingly when Jack walked in he didn’t scream. He flipped on the lights, glanced at the five bat people sitting around his room and sighed long and loud. “Why me? What did I do to deserve this?” He pinched the bridge of his nose, and turned towards the kitchen. He wasn’t dealing with this unless he had another can of red bull. He * _couldn’t_ deal with this unless he had another can of red bull. And hey, maybe all of this was some weird sleep deprived hallucination. Maybe he would walk back into the living room and no one would be there.

Except they were there and they watched him as he walked back in and Jack second-guessed every life decision he ever made that led him to this moment in time. 

“I guess this is happening then,” he mumbled, plopping down on the couch. “I assume you want to talk, or did you come here to just stare at me creepily in silence?”

Robin pounced forward, "How dare you capture my bad side!" Batman pulled him back, clearing his throat.

"It's nice to finally meet you, Jack."

_Ah Shit._ of course they knew his name. They were here to kill him, weren’t they? He’s a dead man walking. But it was fine. He could handle this. He could totally handle this. 

Taking a sip of his drink Jack nodded his head, "Cool cool. Why are you in my apartment?"

Red Hood scoffed, "Kid, he's Batman." Everyone nodded in agreement, earning a glare from the Dark Knight.

"You still broke into my house! Just cause you wear spandex and name yourselves after birds don't mean you can invade my space!"

Nightwing winced, "You know B, he's right-" 

"That's not the point." Batman finished.

"Then what? You want me to delete my videos or some shit? Cause if it gets you weirdos out of here, sure," Jack muttered, opening another can. It’s not like he could do anything about the millions of people who already downloaded it. 

"No. I want to know about your cameras, " Batman tossed the piece of techover to him, "You designed them yourself?"

Jack's eyes widened as he struggled to catch his creation. It was bent on one side and the lense was cracked. 

"You fucking broke it."

"What?" Robin said.

Jack held it out to them, "You fucking broke it! Look at this mess, the wires are hanging out and everything! Jesus, it's like you were digging for weeds, " Jack snapped, hugging the camera to his chest. "As much as I've enjoyed you breaking my tech and entering my home without permission, I still don't know why the hell you've come to me."

This is not how Bruce expected this to turn out. Also, he wasn’t the one who broke the camera. It had been like that when they found it, probably having been hit by something else, but this kid looked tired enough to fight god and win, so he didn’t push it. 

“I want to hire you.” He stated. Better to get straight to the point, right? Apparently, nobody had been expecting that because his sons were staring at him with as much disbelief as jack. 

“What do you mean you want to hire him?” Tim asked. “We have Oracle.” 

“Oracle’s a hacker, isn’t she?” Jack guessed. “Tried to get into my system a few times- I don’t appreciate that by the way- It spazzed the signal and I had to go manually reset over a dozen cameras. Had to up the ante of my firewalls after that. Guess it worked, since she stayed away after the upgrade.” 

“Wait, explain-"

“I dabbled in engineering as a child, my dad was a mechanic and I had a lot of free time. I know how things work and it’s much easier to buy old camera components and revamp them into a new camera entirely. It lets me program it how I needed it for whatever project I'm working on. The footage is live, but all of it is backed up via Bluetooth to my own personal drive that my friend helped build. It wouldn’t be hard to hack the signal if you know what to look for, but most people don’t know what to look for. I’ve been fine until you sicked your hacker on me.” he placed the camera on his lap and started to shift through the pieces. Some of it had to be salvageable, and he had spare parts back in his closet. He could probably have this rebuilt in the few days. He just had to figure out where they had pulled this from.” 

“Out of curiosity, what was your project on?” Red Robin asked. “And why did it involve recording us?” 

“The guys in my cohort think I’m getting special treatment because I’m better than them. To prove them wrong, I let them choose the subject of our most recent project and swore I would still get a better grade. So, they decided that my documentary was going to be on you guys. They thought they were setting me up to fail, but I’m stupid stubborn and I cannot wait to rub this A in their faces.” 

Hood laughed, a hearty sound that Jack wasn’t expecting. “I like this one,” he said.  
  


“You can’t adopt him,” Nightwing added and Jack look horrified. 

“Adopt me? I have a family. My parents live two hours south of Gotham. So sorry, Mr. Wayne, but I don’t want or need a new last name.” Again, probably not the best decision to let slip that yes, Jack knew their secret identities but he had slept for five hours in the last three days and was surviving off of at least three cases of Redbull and stubbornness. He wasn’t exactly thinking before he spoke, but right now no one was speaking. It was so quiet that a pin dropping in the alley behind his apartment complex could have been heard. 

“Oh I definitely like this one,” Jason repeated, pulling off his helmet. He still had a mask on, but it didn’t matter. Jack already knew who they all were. 

Robin lunged forward, pointing a batarang to Jack's neck. "How did you find out? Are you working for my mother?"

Jack casually pushed the blade away from his throat, "Damian, you all act like assholes and Bruce always mutters 'God why did I adopt again’ at least three times an hour."

"I'm not an asshole!" Dick half whined, before turning to Bruce. "I'm not, right?" Bruce sighed through his nostrils. This was going to be a long night

Jason broke out in laughter. It barely registered to him that everyone was staring at him like he was insane, and if Jason was being honest, he definitely was.

"This--this kid just found out our best kept secret, " Jason wheezed, "All because of some college project?" Another round of laughter ensued. "This is some next level bullshit."

Jack was not amused. "Haha, very funny Red Ass, but no thanks. I don't wanna be part of, " he paused as he took in the five people in his living room. "Yeah, no, I don't want part of all that."

“Are you sure?” Tim asked. He'd pulled a tablet out of god knows where and was looking over god knows what. “Gotham University isn’t a cheap school, and the equipment you need costs a pretty penny as well. Obviously, you know we’re a family of wealth. Imagine not being in debt when you graduate. Imagine being able to buy new equipment instead of patching together cameras made of broken outdated parts.”

“First of all, Fuck you Mr. 'I came from a rich family into an even richer family.' My camera’s are phenomenal. They do everything I need and more. I don’t need new equipment to do my job. Second of all, you may have just changed my mind. I’m an out of state student and my student debt isn’t something I like looking at.”

“Really? That’s all it took to sway your decision?” Damian didn’t looked impressed and Jack felt personally offended by this pipsqueaks judgment. 

“What are you, eleven? Have you ever known a day of debt induced hardship in your life? So what if i’m doing this for some extra money. If I can prove I’m getting an income, my parents might lay off me about changing majors. I don’t really understand what it is you want though. Do you want access to my camera’s or do you want me to build you your own network? I can disguise them if you need me to. If it looks like a security camera, people don’t even bat an eye. They just assume it’s supposed to be there even if it’s not. Or maybe you want me to follow you around and make cool videos for you? Got hired by one of the Gotham Royalty girls to do that for her 21st birthday. The pay was great but that was the most uncomfortable I’ve ever been.” he shivered at the memory. It wasn’t something he liked to think back on.

“What I want is to hire you for surveillance. Right now we are limited by the security cameras Oracle can gain access to. When a rouge breaks out, we can only follow them so far. With your system though--” 

“You’re going to hire me to build and set up a city-wide surveillance system and monitor it for you while you go galavanting around in spandex?”

“Could you handle twenty-four hour survalence?”

“Uh...no? I do have to sleep you know. I’m not insane like you people are, and I do still have class responsibilities. Assuming you have a set up though, I can make it so you all get alerts and--again--assuming you have it, i can set up facial recognition to track the person from frame to frame. So even if I can't watch the monitors you should still get reports on the locations of the poor sap you’re hunting down.” 

“How long would it take for you to get everything set up?” 

“I’d need supplies to make new camera’s and probably more space than my current workshop, which is my bedroom. After that it’s a matter of setting everything up on the streets.”

“Which we could help with,” Tim suggested. “Since there are places you probably can’t gain access to.” 

“Okay, first of all, what makes you think I don’t know how to sneak around? Ninety percent of the time people won’t bother me if I look like I belong. Second of all, how dare you think i would ever let you touch my babies after the state you returned this one in.” he huffed, pointing to the ruined camera he’d relocated to the coffee table. 

"We found it like that, " Damian said. For some reason Jack didn't believe that notion. 

"Yeah, whatever. Anyways, I'm in." He stated simply, setting down his can.

"Really?" Dick questioned hesitantly, "You don't hate us?"

Jack snorted, "I've been watching you screw up for weeks, you're all annoying on your own levels, and honestly? How do you tolerate each other?"

"They're family, " Dick reasoned.

"Blood." Damian stated.

"Free food," Jason shrugged.

"Honestly I don't know," Tim sighed.

Jack could feel an oncoming headache. He couldn't tell if it was from the group of spandex clad men in his living room or the sixth can of RedBull pumping through his blood.

"So when do I start?" He finally asked.

"Tomorrow night." It wasn't a suggestion, it was an order.


End file.
